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Extreme Climate
Students discuss global warming, greenhouse effect, permafrost and other key words. In this climate lesson students create a web that connects global warming, the Arctic and world climate then write a paragraph explaining the role...
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Science: A Tree for All Seasons
Students observe trees in their schoolyard and record the seasonal changes by drawing pictures. In this ongoing lesson, they discover the names of the seasons and place green paper leaves on a paper tree in the classroom, which are also...
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Up, Up, and Away
Students create a model to explore the water cycle. Students also perform different experiments to witness water changing from a liquid to a gas. Students are asked to if they can find ways for water to go away without pouring the...
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Oceanography
Fifth graders study the topography of the ocean floor. They determine its ever changing nature as they examine currents and trade winds. They write paragraph describing how the winds might affect land formations after the discussion of...
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WorldWatcher Activity: What Happens to Sunlight?
Students examine a set of data to try to determine the amount of cloud cover. In groups, they make a list of items that reflect light in the atmosphere and how different amounts of it can change the temperature. Using WorldWatcher,...
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Parametric Functions and Substitutions
In this solar winds activity, students determine the strength of magnetic storms in terms of the size of the change they make in the Earth's magnetic field. This instructional activity has 3 problems to solve.
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Wind Dynamics and Forests
Students perform experiments to explore differences in wind speed and forest density. Through experimentation and observation, students realize that changes in vegetation affect the atmosphere and wind conditions. They create a model...
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How to Recycle a Rock
Third graders explore the rock cycle and explore how rocks are made, changed, destroyed and recreated. They create representations of these processes with hands-on activities.
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Water Quality Monitoring
Students study the water quality of a stream in their area, by measuring the temperature, pH, alkalinity and conductivity. They integrate biology with earth science when using the microscope to study the living organisms in the water.
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Weather Whys- Cloud Watching Journal
Students examine how natural processes change the earth by identifying their local water cycle. Individual students complete a cloud journal over a specific period of time. They observe clouds daily and take photographs of the clouds...
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Please Ex-Planet
Seventh graders create a model of an earth centered solar system and a model of the sun centered solar system. As a class, they discuss why the earlier astronomers believed their model and why it changed when evidence arose that this...
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How Do We Forecast Weather?
Third graders investigate how scientists collect weather data in order to forecast the weather. They work in small groups in order to research one type of weather technology such as, satellite images, radar, surface observations, or...
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Polar Caps: Image Processing Tutorial
Young scholars utilize computer image processing techniques to measure the size of Earth's polar ice caps and analyze various phenomena visible on planetary images.
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How We See Things
Students explain that mirrors reflect light. They examine how when a beam of light is reflected from a surface, its direction changes.
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Cartographer and Journalish as Storytellers
Students collaborate in groups of four students to create a written description of their community during a specific year. They analyze data provided by maps and newspaper articles. They meet as a whole class to discuss their conclusions.
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Collecting Electromagnetic Radiation
Students using different experiments and activities explore electromagnetic radiation and the effect on the Earth.
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Glaciers and How They Form lands
As a whole class, the students define glacier and perform an experiment involving glaciers. The students brainstorm ideas of what a glacier is, and narrow the ideas down to a definition. The students then participate in an activity that...
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Weathering and Erosion
Fourth graders take a look at the effects of weathering and other geologic activities found in the environments in which they live. Along with a guided geologic walk outside of campus, there is also an effective in-class demonstration of...
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Glaciers and Ice Wedging
Fourth graders observe and identify a variety of weathering and geological activities in the area in which they live. This focuses primarily on what happened during the Ice Age, and how, even today, glaciers are shaping and re-shaping...
Channel Islands Film
Arlington Springs Man: Lesson Plan 2
West of the West's documentary Arlington Springs Man and a two-page scientific article about the same topic provide the text for a reading comprehension exercise that asks individuals to craft a one page summary of information gathered...
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Physics- global warming
Young scholars discuss the concept of global warming and view a multimedia clip on the global warming phenomenon. They statistically analyze mean temperature data and compare a given set of data. Data on atmospheric CO2 is done then...
Science 4 Inquiry
An Investigative Look at Florida's Sinkholes
In May of 1981, the Winter Park Sinkhole in Florida first appeared and is now referred to as Lake Rose. Scholars learn about the causes of sinkholes through an inquiry project. Then, they analyze recent data and draw conclusions to...
National Wildlife Federation
I’ve Got the POWER Wind Energy Potential at Your School
The 20th lesson in a 21-part series connects the wind data and expectations of a turbine to whether such devices should be built in your area. Scholars begin with estimating the wind potential at school by using long-term climate...
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Rock Cycles, Crayon Cycles
Students examine the rock cycle and the path that rocks go through to rearranged in different ways. They define key vocabulary terms, then in small groups conduct a variety of experiments using crayon shavings as simulated rocks and...